First Look at Goodyear AERO, a 2-in-1 Tire for Autonomous Flying Cars of the Future

Flying cars are finally hitting the road, and all of them will need futuristic tires, like the Goodyear AERO. This is basically a two-in-one tire designed for the autonomous, flying cars of the future that works both as a tire for driving on the road and a “propeller” for flying through the sky. In other words, it serves as a drive train to transfer and absorb forces to and from the road in a traditional orientation and an aircraft propulsion system to provide lift in another orientation. With compatible vehicles, AERO gives future commuters the freedom to move seamlessly from the road to the sky. Read more for another video and additional information.

The tire’s spokes provides support to carry the weight of the vehicle and act as fan blades to provide lift when the tire is tilted, thanks to a non-pneumatic structure that is flexible enough to dampen shocks when driving on the road, and strong enough to rotate at the high speeds necessary for the rotors to create vertical lift. It uses magnetic force to provide frictionless propulsion, thus enabling the high rotating speeds required to drive the vehicle on the ground and, when the wheel is tilted, lift a vehicle into the air and propel it forward. That’s not all, there’s also an embedded A.I. processor that would combine information from the tire’s sensors with data from vehicle-to-vehicle and vehicle-to-infrastructure communication.